


If I Know You I Know What You'll Do

by Krasimer



Series: Khdo Doo Zrxqgv dqg Qhyhu Edfn Grzq [5]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Stressed relationships, Young Grunkles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he dreams that he stopped their father from throwing Stanley out.</p><p>The man had already had his brother's bag packed when he threw him out, there was probably nothing he could have done to keep him there or change his father's mind, but he sometimes thinks about what he could have tried. Maybe he could have gone with him: West Tech was already an impossibility, he could have run away with his twin.</p><p>In the end, it had come down to the fact that he was a stubborn-minded jackass, and now he hasn't seen Stan in over ten years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Know You I Know What You'll Do

Sometimes he dreams that he stopped their father from throwing Stanley out.

The man had already had his brother's bag packed when he threw him out, there was probably nothing he could have done to keep him there or change his father's mind, but he sometimes thinks about what he could have tried. Maybe he could have gone with him: West Tech was already an impossibility, he could have run away with his twin.

In the end, it had come down to the fact that he was a stubborn-minded jackass, and now he hasn't seen Stan in over ten years.

He gets letters from his mom sometimes, small things that tell him how the family is doing, how the baby is developing, how the neighborhood is changing. She's the one who taught him codes, how to conceal writing, something that linked him to her and he has become increasingly grateful for it lately, but when letters started arriving with small drawings of a lemon on the corner of them, he knew what it meant.

With every drawing is an address.

There's a small map on the wall of his study, a pin pushed into the paper where each address is, and every time he looks at it, a wave of guilt washes over him. It had taken him a few letters to realize what the addresses were, but he feels some small measure of comfort in knowing where his brother might be at times.

He's probably doing fine, he always was inventive and creative.

If he'd ever applied himself, he could have done great in school, could have been on the same level as Ford. His pencil dropped to the desk as he thought that, his mouth falling open in shocked horror. Those were almost exactly the same words that the Principal had said about Stan when they were younger.

Ford pushed back from his desk, storming to the kitchen and ignoring the clock, making a stream of constant noise to ignore how alone he felt. Pulling together the supplies to make a pot of coffee, he put it all together and sat at the table, looking out the window into the snow outside.

It had to be below freezing out there, cold enough to kill someone if they stopped for long enough.

A knock on his door startles him and he rises to his feet, stumbling to the door and opening it slowly, a hooded figure standing before him and shivering. "Hey poindexter." a gruff voice greets him, a gloved hand pushing back the hood and revealing the unshaven face of his brother.

There's something off about him being here, but Ford ignores it as his chest constricts and he drags the man in from the cold, slamming the door behind him. "Stanley..." he mutters, awkwardly fumbling for words as he feels his eyes burn in a way that can only mean tears. After a few moments of trying to figure out where to go, what to do, he hugs him close, arms vise-like around him. "Are you alright?"

"Much better now, Sixer." his responds.

His voice is a little off, like he's getting sick, and Ford's stomach flips. "Are you sure?" he pulls back, frowning as he puts a hand to Stan's forehead. His hair is still somewhat short, messily pushed out of his eyes. 

"I'm fine," Stan says, grinning. "Good to see ya."

He hasn't seen his brother in over a decade, but he knows when Stan isn't Stan, especially in the world he has surrounded himself with. The off-putting wrongness fully hits him and he rears back, nearly growling when Stan's hand wraps around his wrist, holding tightly. 

"What's the matter, Ford?" it's still Stan's voice but that isn't Stan, has never been Stan, he let his guard down for just long enough and now this is happening, he should be running. "I got somethin' on my face?" the sides of his mouth split open bloodily, a raggedly gorey grin as Ford struggles even more. "Or is it something else?"

His eyes are yellow, slit-like pupils constricted so far as to be almost nonexistent. 

Now he knows exactly who he's dealing with, and he finally manages to pull himself away, heaving a breath. "Bill."

"Hey nerd, how ya doing." Cipher cackles, still not dropping the illusion of being Stan. "Just thought I'd let you know that I'm still here." his voice is still modified to be his brother's, and he can't stand it because the Stan he remembers wouldn't be this terrifying-

Except the Stan he remembers is the one that he hadn't betrayed.

Not-Stan pulls out a knife and jams it into Ford's eye-socket, maniacal laughter echoing throughout the house as he pulls back, poised to do the same to the other eye. "Don't worry kid, it's just a dream!"

Ford wakes up screaming.

The coffee is ready, the snow is still falling, and there's a small puddle of drool on the tabletop from where he slumped over and fell asleep for a while. The clock tells him that it's only been ten minutes.

Back tense and head aching, Ford sighed, then grabbed a mug from a shelf and the entire pot of coffee. As he walked back to his study, he tried to shake off the image of Stan with a knife in his hands. 

He grumbled as he slid back into his seat, looking down at the journal he had been looking back through to see if there was anything that needed to be in the new one as well. There's a small blank space on the corner of one page, and he hesitated for only a second before he grabbed his pencil and sketched a small boat.

He spent the rest of the night ignoring that particular drawing.

 

XxXxX

 

His dreams are filled with the hope he's forgotten in the waking world.

There's a million different ways that Stanley thinks of contacting his brother, of saying apologies, and a billion ways he dreams things had gone. His favorites, when he wakes, are the ones where he told Ford the night he'd interfered with the machine, dragged him to the gym and helped him fix it.

He also hates those.

There's no happy ending, not for him, not with this, and he and Ford are separated forever. Stan Pines sleeps in a car, his jacket clutched tightly around him, a ratty-edged hat perched low on his head. He has his brother's number, and he occasionally picks up the phone, dials it, waits with his breath held...

Only to chicken out at the last second, hearing his brother's voice answer with "Hello?"

Stanley Pines is a coward.

He was a coward when he was a teenager, he's a coward now, more than a decade has changed nothing about him. When he dreams, he dreams of being braver, of being smarter, of being something his family could have been proud of. 

Sometimes he dreams of being more like Ford.

Stan misses Ford.

It's like the two of them were so close at one point, the brotherly bond between them almost giving them powers of the kind that he has only ever seen in the movies. Most real life twins can only ever wear some of the same clothes, and the heft of his body had even prevented that.

But the way they had been when they were younger, the daily life of being there for each other constantly, that's what he misses.

He fucked up, he knows that.

He should have told Ford the moment anything happened to his dumb machine. There's a thousand and one things he could have done better, all throughout their lives, and the only place he can fix them now is in his dreams..

He rests his head against the steering wheel, shivers for a moment before sighing and closing his eyes.

There's a vague feeling of unease as he tries to get to sleep, like something's wrong and he doesn't know how to fix it. In his mind, Stan can see a yellow glow, can hear a cackling voice and he feels himself grow tense, teeth bared in a wordless snarl. In front of him is Ford, looking too old for how young he is and too scared for what his life should be.

A flash of something makes his heart pound in his chest, a feeling of fear gripping him tightly, like a dog catching something in it's teeth.

Behind him, all around him, there's snow and ice, dark shapes and shadows that he thinks might be trees, but there isn't anyone who could help him. He's all alone, and he's going to die in the cold. The laughter continues, growing even more mocking and hateful.

When he wakes up, he barely manages to get the car door open so that he can be sick on the ground outside instead of on the floor between his feet.

Grabbing the small bottle of water he kept on the passenger seat, he swishes it through his mouth, ignoring the jolt of pain from several of his teeth. Stan spits the water out on the ground with the puddle of vomit, then starts his car and drives away.

He doesn't stop until he's reached somewhere warm.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started writing this before the most recent episode, which I still haven't seen. I figured that there had to be a reason Ford was a paranoid son-of-a-bitch.
> 
> My conclusion, when I looked at what was given to me in seasons one and two, was the illuminati dorito himself.


End file.
